Last night Nick Cannon was on the way home from an event when he got pulled over by the police. Nick was pretty upset about it and turned to his Twitter when he said that he gets pulled over at least once a week because he is a black man driving a nice car. Once a week? If he is serious, then he should tape himself everytime he drives. If he gets pulled over once a week then how come he has never said anything before? If it is happening it needs to be stopped. Somehow I think it is much less frequently than that. He also said that he does not like police and that it goes back all the way to his childhood.
He may be right, though. A black male friend of mine was a doctoral student in Shakespeare at Berkeley. He had to stop going up to Napa, which he loved to do, because he got so sick of being followed around in the nicer stores.
ReplyDeleteSorry I believe it. I've been followed in stores many times and I completely believe it's due to my color. I have brothers and the amount of times they are pulled over is really astounding to me. It happens. People like to think that it doesn't but it definitely does.
ReplyDeleteI believe it too. Nick Cannon isn't a big enough star to be recognized by the police and they probably think he is random street thug in a fancy car.
ReplyDeleteI am very light-skinned and highly educated. If I go shopping in nice stores, I have to be dressed to the nines and look like a rich bitch or I will be unable to get help from salespeople. My White friends can go shopping in old sweats and get top of the line service.
Yep, I'm white but have seen first hand how I am treated differently, i.e. better, than my friends of color.
ReplyDeleteI've been pulled over for driving a Range Rover through a rough, highly patrolled neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't my car, my friend was too drunk to drive, it was at night, and the cops basically pulled us over to see why we were there.
I had lost my wallet a month before, so I was carrying my passport as photo id, and the car owner couldn't find the insurance, and they still let us go, no problem. Pretty sure that would have went differently if we hadn't been white.
I used to live in an apartment on a nice suburb. Our apartment was on a busy street. We would see people of color pulled over nightly right in front of our apartment. I believe him - maybe not so much the frequency but that he gets profiled.
ReplyDeleteI believe him. Young man of color, driving an expensive car in an exclusive neighborhood? I bet there's some cop that has him pegged.
ReplyDeleteMy black friends have told me this happens all the time. That scene in Crash is right on. Disgusting.
ReplyDeleteTell him to call Blair Underwood. Remember him, he was the attractive Black lawyer on LA Law. He would get pulled over regularly driving to and from the set, again because he was a black man driving a nice car in Beverly Hills (I think he had a BMW at the time). Its not that they would follow him a bit while they ran his plates, they would actually pull him over for no damn reason, broad daylight, nightime, morning, whenever.
ReplyDeleteYes, Nick Cannon needs to start recording these events, it is ridiculous the LAPD still wastes time with this behavior.
Sorry Enty but as a person of color I cannot agree with him more. This has happened to several of my family members more than once, so I can definitely relate.
ReplyDeleteI went to the local chief of police over this very same issue. A family member of mine was once pulled over THREE times in one day. It's ridiculous and pisses me off.
ReplyDeleteABC's "What Would You Do?" has had some good shows on how people non-white people are treated in stores.
I don't care for the police in general, either. Too many negative experiences with them both personally and via friends. I know there are good ones, I just never happen to run into those ones.
ReplyDeleteToo sad and too true. See my post in the following article. I'll shut up now.
ReplyDeleteI have also been followed around stores as a potential criminal - and was once taken to the back room of a department store and searched! - and I'm a white, blonde female with absolutely no criminal record, not even a parking ticket.
ReplyDeleteBeing unfairly suspected of criminal behavior is never fun, no matter who you are.
ITA w/ RocketQueen.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't had a speeding ticket in 10 years...new car (& it's sporty) & I get 2 in one month. I think they target for car type & I damn for sure know they target people of color.
Where I live, they don't care what colour you are. If you ain't a donut, the cops are not going to pay any attention to you!
ReplyDeleteBut yes, I believe Nick Cannon too. I've just heard too many stories like these over the years...it's sad that this shit is still going on.
I'm in the same boat as Nutty Flavor, and I'm white too (I dont think you can get much whiter than me either). While I'm sure a bit of it has to do with color, not all of it. Some cops are just a-holes (and I'm the daughter of one).
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what Nick is saying, and I'm lily-white. Whenever I drive through the most exclusive part of St. Louis, EVERYONE I see pulled over is black, without fail. It's embarrassing, and I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have to deal with it on a daily basis, let alone know that the police see you as some kind of enemy instead of a citizen who deserves their help.
ReplyDeleteI believe it. I'm white and grew up in a very nice, predominately white suburb, and if you did a tally of people getting pulled over, 9 times out of 10 they were not white. Always hispanic or black. It is so unfortunate the amount of racial profiling.
ReplyDeleteBlack men have a harder time getting cabs!!
ReplyDeleteI have a family friend that resembles Sadaam Hussein. His cop stories are the worst.
Maybe when black people stop committing 90% of the crimes in this country then they will be treated differently
ReplyDeleteClubber Wang, stop you're trolling!
ReplyDeleteomg Clubber Wang- you're a jerk!
ReplyDelete@Clubber Wang -- are you some kind of asshole cop?
ReplyDeleteOink, oink. Motherfucker.
Not a cop, just a law-abiding citizen stating the obvious: the majority of violent crimes in the United States are committed by black males.
ReplyDelete@clubber wang: aside from the fact that your "statistic" is drastically incorrect, the majority of crime in developed nations is actually committed by marginalized and economically disadvantaged individuals. race isn't a predictor of crime. so read a book before you make an asinine statement because maybe then you will realize that being at the receiving end of perpetual prejudicial/discriminatory treatment is the most significant predictor of criminality (hence the significance of being racially profiled).
ReplyDeleteI believe it. I used to work in an investment bank when I was in my 20s. I was a pretty low-level person, and one evening when we were leaving and chatting together, a Sr. VP, who was black, asked me if I wouldn't mind hailing a cab for him. He said, slightly embarrassed, "They won't stop for me." The guy was an Ivy League grad who is now hugely rich.
ReplyDelete@Moonmaid - Ugh, that story makes me so sad. But him being rich now made me happy for him. :)
ReplyDeleteas my mom use to say, "what kind of person wanta to strap a gun on their hip and walk around like wyatt earp?" my experience w/ police is that they prefer to bother people who are not really a threat, like teen boys & illegal parking jobs, as opposed to real criminals/issues.
ReplyDeleteClubber Wang, you mean "the majority of convictions for violent crimes are black males. Because white people get treated a hell of a lot better by our "justice" system. A black teen caught selling drugs? Instant jail. A "nice" white suburban kid caught selling? Let off with a warning and a grounding by the parents.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a guy from Jamaica who came into work one day fuming for having gotten pulled over for "DWB;" I cluelessly asked, "Driving While...Blotto?" and he said, "No, motherfucker, Driving While Black!" My introduction to the subject.
ReplyDeleteHe also explained that he couldn't just pull over when the blue lights came on, but had to try to find a lighted area like a parking lot to maybe keep the police from beating him up after getting stopped. Being white, I had never even thought about it.
@Me: My brother's daughter married a young police officer who attends every family function--birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas--with a 9mm on his hip. Nothing like watching him at his son's birthday party, opening presents while packing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, sadly I don't think he is making it up.
ReplyDeleteIt is not just race though - a family friend recently had to get rid of his brand new BMW because he just started getting so many tickets for ridic reasons. He went from never being pulled over, to being pulled over at least once a week, and fined for stuff like "your brights are too bright", even though the car had just gotten a clean bill of health from the shop.
I too believe him and that ClubberWang is a jerk.
ReplyDeleteEnty -- take a look at current NY press coverage fo the NYPD's "stop and frisk" practice. The numbers are staggering for men of color who are stopped on the street.
ReplyDelete